Words as Saltambiques

 

Let me hear you say
The words I want to hear
Darling when you're near 
--Words of Love,
Buddy Holly 

Now what I want is Facts. ...
In this life, we want nothing but Facts, sir;
nothing but facts! 
--Hard Times, Charles Dickens 

I've believed as many as six
 impossible things before breakfast 
--Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carrol
_________________

Outside of last weekend's local gun show stood an animated crowd of young Republicans swinging placards declaring of our Teabagger-friendly Congressman Steve Southerland, "He'll protect your 2nd Amendment rights!"

Ranger thought, "What's a right if it has to be protected?" Of course, no one has a "right" to own a gun -- our rights are delegated to us, and protected by the proper authorities. This implies they may be yanked from us just as easily.

Ditto all rights: just because we have a voice box does not guarantee us the right to use it in any manner we see fit, or in any circumstance. Our "rights" are curtailed once they enter the public sphere, and protections must be issued and guarded in order to allow our expectation of continuity in our lives. So perhaps the word "rights" is not the best one for these privileges accorded by our guiding societal agreements.

An enumerated right might be an offense, in another context. Words are symbols, and may only approximate the actuality (presuming an actuality exists.) As Alfred Korzybski wrote, "the map is not the territory." This is not to say that the deconstructionists are correct when they strip the possibility of fixed meaning from words. It is simply that absolute definitions are really only valid within an agreed upon construct.

In context then, terms like "situational ethics" are revealed as the excuse and cloaking mechanism which they are. Situational ethics imply no ethics at all, or no fixed ethics, which throws the reference point for knowledge (in this case, "ethics") into question.

Words can be used to communicate or to obfuscate. They can be constructive or destructive. The goal of communication is not necessarily positive. Words in the service of communications have become more emotive, as it is easier to sway people with emotion.

Some words are forbidden, and euphemisms can become mandatory. Entire swathes of our population engage in a private lexicon understood only by acolytes. However, as in the classic "All in the Family" episode in which husband Archie forbade Edith from using the term "cling peaches", a way around the matter was found, and a careful and discreet listener can divine the meaning behind the rhetoric.

Today, when words are generated at such a rapid pace, and replicated through the push of a button into myriad other platforms, words often fail to clarify, instead taking up their role as saboteurs of meaning. By blurring hard definitions, words wear a cloak of impenetrability. This confusion over simple meanings causes the listener to block attempts to hear and decode what the saboteurs are producing in their sound bytes, or simply to question when those sound bytes do not seem to be consistent with observed reality, or even what was said prior.

For example, the word "invasion" has gone from being a word describing an offensive act to an ostensibly protective concept with the addition of "preemptive". Invasions become prophylaxis to a future invasion. The aggressor (= "preemptive invader") becomes a gatekeeper.

In this context, the 2003 United States invasion of Iraq becomes a positive and protective gesture, like Congressman Southerland's protection of my rights. However, in Russia's current actions in the restive nation on its border (the Crimea in Ukraine), invasion is once again configured as an untoward and aggressive action. How does an individual make sense of one word with so many intonations and connotations?

Contributing to the problem is the panoply of issues which occupy a life, and the concomitant number of platforms on which we receive our news, gobbling up any free time which might be used in contemplation. Not only have facts blurred into opinions, but the opinion generators have gained their own followings, such is the need for material to fill up the cable airspace, and comedians who can keep our attention better than the dry newscasters are often our main sources of data. But while comedians may hold our attention, they cannot do the deep thinking for us, something required of an informed electorate.

Words can also be the basis of disinformation when used by propagandists, and are used to confuse and confound, eliciting a desired effect that may be unreasonable, emotional or inappropriate. Sometimes, the propagandists look like good guys, such as those in our National Security Agency.

But back to the gun show.

How can a  congressman protect my rights from anything? If they are rights, as conferred by foundational documents which have created and guide my government, then he is only charged with getting out of the way. Congress critters should disabuse themselves of the notion that they are doing anything besides functioning as obedient public servants.


--Jim and Lisa

Equal Rights

Everybody's high on consolation
Everybody's trying to tell me what's right for me
My daddy tried to bore me with a sermon
but it's plain to see that they can't comfort me 
--She's Gone, Hall and Oates 

Someone's gonna feel the pain
Hit the floor, she's takin' aim
Is it you - is it you, is it me - is it me
Who's the next in the line gonna be? 
--Hot Shot, Barry Blue
 ___________________ 

The complexion of gun shows is changing, and the most recent Tallahassee Gun Show was no exception.

• The price of ammunition has skyrocketed, and people are acting crazy trying to buy it all up

• Gun shows have become monthly extravaganzas; they used to be quarterly events 

• The news media was crawling all over the event, and they seemed interested in speaking only to people wearing tree bark of those covered in tattoos.  Soundbites rule.

The flyer for the concealed weapons class (pictured above) indicates that the CCW permit is a "license".  One must pay for the class, fingerprinting, photograph, notarization, background check and for the license itself. Who determined that the exercise of the Second Amendment would be abridged in this manner?  Our freedom of speech or religion is not regulated in such a manner.  Our right to vote may not be constrained by poll tax, so why must the right to bear arms be sliced and diced?

Ranger understands the need for gun regulation (much as free speech is constrained), but not the requirement to pay the state for his right to exercise this individual right delegated to him by the Bill of Rights. We understand, too, that rights are a quaint notion and not an absolute possession when living in a social structure.  They are delegated, and as such, they are precious freedoms which must be safeguarded at all costs; a right given up to or usurped by a power structure is a right not likely to return.

If one right is fungible and frangible, then so too are all rights. We should not rush to throw away our rights by the fistful out of fear or coercion.

Swallow This

Here we go again with
Mickey Mouse and Rin-Tin-Tin 
--Old Army Cadence Call 

I'm crazy for trying and crazy for crying
And I'm crazy for loving you 
--Crazy, Patsy Cline 

No escape from the mass mind rape
Play it again jack and then rewind the tape
And then play it again and again and again
Until your mind is locked in 
--Bullet in the Head, 
Rage Against the Machine
  ___________________

Is gun control a real life issue or just another hot-button topic used by both parties to keep We the People in a constant state of emotional upheaval?  The issue serves to polarize and harden the plaque in our partisan arteries, without demandingd any rigorous proof which might substantiate the taking of one side over the other.

Meanwhile, our national "debate" hinges on the straw man argument: You are for gun control, or you are for unfettered Wild West violence.  Good, compassionate limp-wristed liberals vs. insane, gun-toting bloodthirsty tea baggers.  Only, the reality is not so facile. Who speaks for common sense today?

Let us use the figure of 30,000 annual gun homicides in the United States (this figure includes justifiable use of firearms).  30K is a lot of dead people, but so what?  Dead folks are helpful to society in many different ways; in fact, they are essential lest we deplete our raw resources. Requiescat In Pace.

Why do we get crazy about gun deaths but barely raise a whisper about the approximately 100,000 annual U.S. deaths due to  wrongly prescribed pharmaceutical drugs and drug reactions and interactions?  There is one death (accidental or intentional) every 24 minutes in the U.S. due to drugs found in our own medicine cabinets; 61 deaths per day, on average, or 22,265 deaths per year.  How do you legislate drug safety?

Good liberals decry the gun lobby and take easy pot shots at those who embrace their guns, but a far bigger and more nefarious lobby is that of Big Pharma, whose products will kill every one of us far more efficiently and in larger numbers than will guns any day of the week.  Insidiously, too.

If gun deaths are unacceptable, then so too are prescription drug deaths, or tobacco-related deaths, or alcohol-related deaths.  We tried to legislate the latter with the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act but found out that our citizens have a remarkable facility for circumventing the law.  Banning things rarely works in a free society, though legislation may. The caveat is that a free society must sign on to the strictures. We abide by a Bill of Rights which accords us the right to weapons ownership.

The issue comes down to power and control of our lives. Are we a liberal or a conservative society?  Is the Federal government  allowed or legally able to force background checks and then to use these as investigative and intelligence tools?  Why and how can the government use private legal purchase of firearms to establish a national database for firearms purchasers?  Further, is such a warrantless intrusion into our rights of privacy and ownership consistent with what we are as Americans?

Why do we have a Fourth Amendment?  We should get clear on this when discussing Second Amendment infringements.

Guns look scary and go "BOOM!", and when used destructively, the results can be spectacular.  Because it is a simple, discrete item, it is easy to focus on.  We are susceptible to being riled up by the press and our leaders like marionette puppets chittering on about the latest train wreck dujour, whether personal or political (or best -- a combination of both).  Yet we ignore the many other forms of death which stalk us every day of our lives, some of which may be as easily legislated as gun ownership and may be more productive in terms of protection.

It seems that we have an unspoken covenant that condones certain methods of self-destruction, while opposing gun violence. But why is the death wrought at the end of a gun any different from that caused by any number of other mundane modalities?

What are willing to swallow? At the current mortality rate from prescription drugs, we have more dead bodies stacked up every 11 days than we do victims of all spree shootings since 1980.  Where is our sense of perspective?  All of this death without one extended magazine or assault rifle.

Guns are viewed as symbols of freedom by many Americans.  In fact, we would not have our nation had the citizens not owned firearms; it was not via mediation that the Brits decided to leave us to our own devices.

We are also a nation of death, and one form is as serviceable as the next.

Scattershot

This is the argument of a totalitarian. 
You can't know what we're doing to protect you, 
even if we're doing it to you, 
because then we can't protect you 
and you will be killed by bad people 
and it will be your own fault 
--Should Auld Civil Liberties Be Forgot, 
Charles Pierce 

What a wonder is a gun
What a versatile invention!
First of all, when you've a gun-
Everybody pays attention 
--Gun Song, Assassins soundtrack

 They who can give up essential liberty
to obtain a little temporary safety,
deserve neither liberty nor safety 
--Benjamin Franklin
 ________________

Along with death and taxes, gambling remains Big Business in the United States.

As the mega-million dollar state lotteries roll on despite the player's incredibly slim odds of winning, this metaphor seems right for a society that accepts odds of thousand-to-one of winning. The  
Lotto Mentality was the impetus behind entering the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) and drives much of our legislation, including our gun laws.  We buy Lotto tickets, fight wars and legislate with only the slightest chance of winning.

Betting on a legal solution to our domestic violence issue is as losing a proposition as is buying a Florida Lottery ticket.  It is a response to the cry to "do something", but it is as well thought out as an grade school teacher denying the entire class recess because someone threw a spitball. (This is not to dismiss a spree killing as being akin to such a classroom transgression, but to compare the punishment of all for the crime of one.)

We fight in Iraq and Afghanistan and call it a war while in reality it is nothing but controlled bully behavior, asserting our military dominance under the pretense of caring about their welfare.  In reality, we occupy their country because they are the enemy.

The same bullying is conducted in the United States towards its own citizens, when Ranger feels like the enemy because he believes he has the right to own weapons, including those that would be carried by a law enforcement officer.  If a government does not trust its citizenry, then it is an adversary, and is not by, of and for the people; the people are not the enemy.

Gun ownership will not protect our democracy; then again, neither will anything else, to include myriad technologies.  It is the hallmark of a cosseted democratic society to believe that we can be protected.

Did Jose Padilla think that he would be thrown in a brig, devoid of all rights of citizenship? Did "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh expect to bear the barbaric treatment thrown his way? Did Bradley Manning expect two years in prison before even being tried for an offense?  What were the odds?

Will guns make us free?  Probably not, but they are an indicator of the health of our freedoms and our status as free citizens versus subjects of our elected government.  It is ironic that so many argue for the continued abridgement of our civil rights, as though a bloated entity will be a better controller of our behavior than each of us may be himself.

Killing is wrong, whatever the source.  Handguns and assault rifles are but a piddling threat compared to what can be done in the name of the government.  Ranger for one does not fear the governed.  The abrogation of gun rights once accorded to the governed rarely bodes well for those so deprived.  Consider how the Holocaust might have played out had the slaughtered had access to small arms -- think about the doomed Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Back to the Lotto: You can play and not win, or you can not play and not win; either way, you're a loser.  If my government does not trust me, I have lost the most important measure of citizenship.

Winning $530 million off a $1 ticket will not compensate for that loss.

Live or Let Die

--Last of the Leaves, Squirrell

Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die
--The Charge of the Light Brigade,
Alfred Lord Tennnyson

Son, you are a walking violation
of the laws of nature,
but we don't enforce them laws
any which way
--Any Which Way You Can (1980)

I just wanna say I think killin' is wrong,
no matter who does it,
whether it's me or y'all or your government
--Dead Men Walking (1995)

But Justice held up in a shotgun shack
And she wouldn't let nobdoy in
So a Nation cried
--Justice and Independence '85,
John Cougar Mellencamp
_____________________

This is prompted by the killing of former Libyan leader Moammer Qadhafi and the general reaction of glee to that event. (An interesting side note to the glee is the removal of all but one Qadhafi political cartoon from the popular site "Cagle's Cartoons", which had featured a menagerie of renderings of the slain leader the day of the news of his death.)

Such a lot of fun for a minute, and then, so quickly after Secretary of State Clinton all smiley and warrior-like declared, We came, we say, he died, the furore seems to have past. Did it hit us that we were celebrating something grotesque, and that the participant celebrants were a variant of human which we would do well not to fraternize with? Are our attention spans merely so shortened that we are now fishing about for the next best thing? Or are we simply enervated by all of the recent murdering?

It's nigh on embarrassing to discuss the sanctity of life, especially in a God-fearing country like America. Yet we kill our fellows with such rapidity that our guns seldom have time to cool.

Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out is Cistercian monk Amalric's 11th century Crusader wisdom, which is alive and well in many's attitude toward those we are fighting in the Middle East. The Lord knows them what's his. It is a great motto for those in the killing business, but hardly the motto for a democratic Christian nation.

The basis of all democratic thought is the sanctity of life and the value of each individual, to include that of murderers, rapists and other bad people, including terrorists, who fall under the rubric criminals. All life is equally valuable. From this tenet flows the rule of law, which we equate to the concept of justice. "Liberty and justice for all" includes terrorists, or more specifically, accused terrorists. (Even women terrorists are equal, if we can take the 19th Amendment enfranchisement of woman as recognition of their inherent equality.)

In the U.S. one is not guilty until the government can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that one committed the crime. (Ranger has an astounding grasp of the obvious.) Moreover, this precept applies to all crimes; there are no exempted categories in the Constitution or Federal Code which derives from that foundational document.

Today's legal ambivalence stems from our growing lackadaisical attitude toward our core beliefs and values. We make so many exceptions to our freedoms that we begin loosening our conception of the sanctity of and rights accorded to life.

As well, the immense slaughter that wartime killings in the 20th century alone have wrought has rendered the crossing of the line between sacred and profane more porous. The recent WTC bombings elicited such shock -- whether due to insulation or hubris -- that many presumed some people were to be denied the conception of equality under law.

Now, the Bill of Rights can be macerated and abridged any way we choose; laws are made to be broken. But how do we reckon that with the moral and religious imperative, "Thou Shalt Not Kill"? What if the alleged perpetrator of a crime has killed? Are his human rights revoked? Repellant as the proposed scenario is, it is a common enough situation that a society must determine the answer.

While states in our Union may vary in their sentencing, all adhere to the presumption of innocence and habeas corpus; that agreement allows us consistency and coherence, necessities in order for a system of jurisprudence to function. The sanctity of life is not Ranger's personal construct but has always been official U.S. policy in both civilian and military environments, whether it be in hostage negotiations or war.

The sanctity of life used to be the tenet of all law enforcement, and was taught in Department of Defense classrooms, as well. Even in warfare this holds, for why else would we not kill Prisoners of War? The U.S. is neither Nazi nor Communist, nor are their fighters Imperial Japanese troopers.

If we apply the Enlightenment principle of the sanctity of life, one must then accept an elevation of our threat level. But it is a choice; either we believe it, or not.

What is It?

Lay down the law
Shout out for more
Breakout and shout day in day out
--Breakout, Swing Out Sister

Don't take your guns to town son
Leave your guns at home Bill
Don't take your guns to town
--Don't Take Your Guns to Town,
Johnny Cash
___________________

When at estate or yard sales Ranger always asks, "Do you have any guns, guitars or military items?" The question results in some unusual responses.

Last weekend he received, to wit: "Nope, the family got all the good stuff!" Ranger replied, "I'm sorry for your loss." There are not too many Zorba's who remain by their Madame Hortense, but there are many vultures out to swoop up the goods. This interaction was a pretty good summation of American life today -- "We got the good stuff." At least, some do.

We don't so much talk about the right stuff, however. Of the three stuffs that hold Ranger's interest, guns are the one most threatened today. The Supreme Court recently affirmed (McDonald v. Chicago) that gun ownership per the Second Amendment is an individual right; legally-owned firearms are a citizen's right.

However, since this ruling, several citizens have received prison sentences for having loaded firearms in their cars or on their person; in one case, the firearm was in a backpack. So how is it the right to own firearms not being infringed upon when citizens are still going to prison for bearing arms?

The 2nd Amendment does not restrict our rights to the border of our households. Why doesn't the SC resolve this issue in a court decision? Why are we allowing citizens exercising their constitutional rights to be turned into a new class of public enemy? Americans have always carried guns; whether that is a public or private good is an issue aside from the fact.

It just seems a little screwy: The U.S. is involved in a kinetic Phony War on Terror / Overseas Contingency Operations (PWOT / POCO ©) and we in The Homeland (™) are told the threat level is elevated, and we are to be "alert, but not afraid". But . . . what good is being alert if I can't be armed if my alertness spots a threat scenario? What good is it, Mr. President?

Ranger has a squirrel dog, Buddy, who barks incessantly until his master goes outside to recognize the ruckus. Sometimes there is actually a squirrel; sometimes, not. To reify Buddy's rantings, Ranger will ask, "What is it?" If it is a false alarm, Buddy will run tree to tree helter skelter, as if to scare up a threat.

That is what living in the U.S. 2011 has become: We are being trained Pavlovianly to look up when the talking heads bark, but what does all the sound and fury amount to? Without a shotgun, you have a man and a dog staring up at a tree at the caperings of a possible menace to the wires in his attic.

The question does not oppose RAW's opposition to the militarization of our lives and of the police. Individual arms have never stopped a terrorist incident since 9-11-01. While terror can't be stopped by guns, everyday crime could be. The late, great American city of Detroit suffers about one murder each day, but lawful citizens are denied the right to carry firearms to protect themselves from a real criminal threat. Meantime, police are armed to the teeth to fight a questionable terrorist threat.

This makes no sense.

Good safety posture come from correctly identifying the threat and arraying responsible deterrents and protection. For the average citizen, criminal recklessness perpetrated by another individual or group of individuals is his biggest threat. Within the context of current America, awash in a sea of guns, the question is: Do we want citizens to be able to protect themselves, or not?

Either we have gun rights or we don't.

A Century of Progress

My heart burns with feeling, but,
My mind, it's cold and reeling
--Love or Confusion, Jimi Hendrix

I maintain that
Chaos is the future
And beyond it is freedom
Confusion is next and next
after that is the truth
You gotta cultivate what you need
to need
--Confusion is Next, Sonic Youth
______________________

Ranger recently purchased a 1911 A1 pistol and a 1909 Argentine Mauser in an absolute auction. While playing with his new toys, the little label on the case, "Not Legal in California" hit him like a hole in the head.

[As an aside, several of the largest gun shops in the Panhandle of Florida are going belly up, a telling trend. When gun shops die in Bible Belt, Redneck Heaven, U.S.A., you know things are bad.]

The pistol is a century old design, in continual production and in use in every dust up the U.S. Army enters. The 1911 A1 is iconic as the Colt Peacemaker and just as popular with today's shooters. It has a 7-round magazine with one up the snout, so why is it illegal in California? ?

In fact, if it had a 50-round mag, why would it be illegal? Before calling me a dumb-ass, I conceded the arguments against hi-cap magazines are valid, but we are not talking reason. We are talking 2nd Amendment, and we either believe gun ownership is an inalienable right, or we do not. There are no restrictions to sporting use or restrictions on capacity or auto mode in the Constitution.

It is illogical to concede that we have gun rights that can't be infringed, then say that a century-old pistol design is illegal in any state of the Union. Ditto the waiting period strictures.

Ranger currently owns several 1911 A1's (to include two WW II wartime production Colts.) In order to get my hands on the latest acquisition he had to fill out an ATF form indicating that he is everything a good, gun-loving American should be. Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms & Florida require a 5-day waiting period called a "cooling period", which is odd since I have a loaded Smith & Wesson .357 magnum in my car right outside the gun shop door -- how much cooler can I get? That's downright frosty.

[Since the gun was purchased Saturday, the waiting period starts Monday when the paperwork was filed, so it becomes a 7-day waiting period, depending upon circumstance.]

The gun shop would not allow Ranger to take possession of the 100-yr-old Mauser rifle because he had a handgun in the cooling off phase, even though there is no waiting period for long arms. Where is the consistency? Is it not reasonable to contend that the transaction took place when the gavel fell? So why didn't the waiting period start at that time?
Answer-because we all fear ATF and their arbitrary rulings.

The Supreme Court recently slapped down Arizona for its immigration laws using the logic that no state can have a law which is harsher than Federal law. If true for U.S. Code, then should it not be exponentially true for a Bill of Rights freedom? Why can California have such a draconian gun law? Would I, as a Floridian, be arrested if the California Highway Patrol found the weapon/1911A1 in my vehicle? Why is the same gun both legal and illegal, depending upon geography? Are we not one country?

Gun laws amount to harassment, and fail to address the real issues facing society.

Cowboys and Aliens

--Bigger is Badder

What the hell?
--Cowboys and Aliens (2011)

And anger of the Lord will blaze against you,
and he will close the heavens and there will not be rain,
and the earth will not give you its fullness
--fr. Shema, Jewish Prayer

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child
Long way from my home
Sometimes I wish I could fly
Like a bird up in the sky
--Motherless Child, Van Morrison
______________________

This is a moment in a day in the life this week of Ranger, out on the range in the hinterlands of Northwest Florida, Solar System. It is hard to tell if he is the Cowboy or the Alien. He is inclined towards "alien" as he was the only one not "strapped" in this little episode.

The scene: A local mechanic's shop, right wing radio blaring its inanity, National Rifle Association mag on the table. The men talked of guns, one vociferously bad-mouthing a gun control advocate called "Shuma". This caused Ranger some consternation as 2nd Amendment issues are near and dear to him, and he had not heard of this Shuma. The wildly vilified Black Bart turned out to be Rep. Charles Schumer (D-NY).

At the point of recognition, Ranger said, "Let's be real here [first wrong assumption] -- the first assault weapons ban occurred by Executive Order from the pen of George H.W. Walker." Came the invective: "I don't talk to liberals!", he said disgustedly, after he pulled his shirt aside to display the 9 mm pistol stashed in his belt line.

Now Ranger has always been against gun control, and this exchange should have made his little Red, White and Blue heart flutter, except . . . it did not. It's 2011 and we will not even talk to one another, and some of us are so threatened here in The Homeland ™ that they spend their days with pistols in their belts. Where do we meet?

This is not the sign of a healthy society.

Last week we sighted a police officer in a black outfit and a shirt imprinted, "Drug Task Force". He was carrying a high-cap Glock in a gunfighter, low-slung holster with enough gear to fight Tet '68. What's that all about?

Have we gone insane? Ranger likes guns and oppose gun control, but does not carry because it is not wise. When you carry, you are less likely to leave a confrontation -- the weapon heightens the chance of a dangerous or lethal interaction.

Was the gunslinger flashing his hide-out gun threatening me? Could I kill him before he pulls his weapon? Was it a thumbing of the nose? A show of solidarity with the shop's owner (who also sports a gun in his belt), or something else?

Ranger's advice: Don't let someone within striking distance even if you've got a handgun rubbing your dick, 'cause that could be the last thing it ever touches.

Share the Love

To live is to war with trolls
--Henrik Ibsen
_________________

A few days ago a brave ANON commenter called Ranger a "latte-drinking faggot" on an older post "Bait and Switch". The recent post, Dead Babies Don't Cry, must have got him searching for other places Ranger disparaged what has become of the Special Forces.

In part, ANON brags: "We LOVE to KILL our enemies!! HA! what do you think of that? DOES THAT REPULSE YOU? Good... Bunch of queers."

The attacks are always prompted by my anti-war stance, which logically leads my antagonists to imagine I do not really have my tabs and am, therefore, a godless poseur. I must be a phony, and the presumption continues that I must be anti-military, which may be understandable in our new Glenn Beckian world, if unjustified.

It returned me to the days when I drank thousands of cups of C-ration coffee in a nasty, dirty canteen cup. The closest I came to latte was when I mixed the C-rat creamer and sugar in my hot cocoa mix to help fight off the cold. Ranger doubts this individual ever drank out of a canteen cup or used ration issue toilet paper.

If he did, the military experience was wasted on him. Those who have served in the military should understand perhaps even better than those who haven't the reasons we fight. The reason should be to protect our freedoms, premier of which is freedom of speech.

Let Freedom Ring

In my many years I have come to a conclusion
that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm,
and three or more is a congress
--John Adams

While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society's pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he's in
--It's Alright, Ma, Bob Dylan
________________

The Big Lie in the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) is that our soldiers are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan to protect our freedoms. That is the official cover story, they're sticking with it, and we buy it every time. Except it is not true.

Here is a little story of un-freedom right here in River City (Quincy, FL). The owner of a local car dealership is an avid gun collector, who buys, sells and trades guns. He does not sell the guns at his car dealership, but as a collector at local gun shows.

This activity came under the rubric "freedom," until the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) and congress started playing with the 2nd Amendment. As a result, a non-licensed collector is now arrested for his pastime of buying and selling guns.

Guns are now a hot-button topic, but the bottom line is: Are we free men or not, beholden to a Constitution which has served us well for over 200 years. The following facts argue against it --

• Individuals must pay a $5.00 background check every time they legally purchase a firearm. (The background check in Florida is waived if one possesses a Concealed Weapon permit. Cost: $135 for the permit, and $130 for the required weapons handling course.)

• All firearms manufactured in the U.S. pay a manufacture tax of 12%, which is obviously passed on to us Free Men. One wonders if the manufacturers of voting booths pay an equivalent tax.

A right is not a right if one must spend money to exercise that right. It is illegal to charge a citizen for the right to exercise his franchise, so why must we pay to exercise our gun rights?

Can you spell I-N-F-R-I-N-G-E?

Gun Nuts

The art of our necessities is strange,
That can make vile things precious.
--King Lear, Shakespeare
_____________

Ranger attended a recent gun show and got a taste for life on the other side of our comfy corner of the blogosphere.

First, the amount of hatred for Barack Obama is palpable, and the vitriol is not contained -- it overflows. Frequently heard was the assertion that Obama would ban assault weapons, pistols and ammo. The T-shirts show a new level of defiance: "Liberals are Posing as Americans," "Infidel and Proud of It."

But best of all were the featured celebrities, look-alikes of Sarah Palin and George Bush holding assault rifles. Since this crowd is so concerned about their assault rifles and the ban they imagine Obama will impose upon their ownership, Ranger feels like setting the record straight.

First, a definition.

The first assault rifle was the StG 43 or 44 variant, along with the MP 43 and 44. These evolved into the AK 47. All assault rifles are selective fire, meaning they are automatic weapons. They are full auto, but they are not machine guns. (Machine guns are belt-fed, open-bolt fired, crew served and are not individual weapons; assault rifles are.)

StG is an abbreviation of Sturmgewehr, or "storm rifle," which became assault rifle in English. They use lower intensity, intermediary cartridges, meaning they lack in power and range, but are excellent for assaulting objectives when a heavy volume of fire is called for. Assault rifles are shoulder-fired individual military weapons.

There was a ten-year assault rifle ban, from 1994-2004, but contrary to the name, the weapons targeted were not assault rifles but rather look-alikes, which lack the selective fire feature. Again -- all assault rifles are selective fire.

So, the U.S. government denied the citizens the right to own bad ass looking weapons with high capacity mags and which fire in a semi-automatic mode. But the hypocrisy is weighty: IF one wishes to own a real full auto assault rifle, one need only pay a $200 fee and purchase a Federal Tax Stamp and voila, it is legal to purchase a fully auto weapon, to include machine guns. It has always been that way, even during the "ban".

So why the phony ban? If you can own the weapon provided you plunk down $200, it is a violation of the constitutional concept of rights, as one must pay to exercise their rights. The $200 is the issue, and not the ban, which never was.

As so often in our society, the simulacra stands in for the actual. It looks like we ban assault weapons, but we do not really. What is actually being banned is a full, unfettered access to our 2nd Amendment rights via a "gun tax."

The gunnies are so terrified that an "assualt weapons ban" will be implemented. They do not care that the economy is crumbling beneath them -- just don't take away their stupid damned rifle. They fail to see the intricacy of what is actually at stake.

Their argument is always, "What if we need to rebel?" It is Ranger's experience that no one ever became a rebel who was a fat ass in tree bark.

You cannot revolt if you are watching the Super Bowl XLIII but you sure can stroke your rifle, even if it's a little one.